Tag: survival

book-review, books, Indian Culture, literature, reading

quest for justice in books and movies

k4books

As everyone gets ready to either watch or avoid the Academy Awards tonight, the number of articles being posted about them is exploding. I read one today on Yahoo.com about how Driving Miss Daisy won the award in 1989, but Spike Lee’s Do The Right Thing was not even nominated. The article went on to detail how race relations in the movies has always been employment based.  The black person is hired as a maid or driver, the friendship is made, and the employer’s racism is lessened. This concept was an important one for me, as I had just finished reading The Space Between Us by Thrity Umrigar.

Set in India, where classism is real and continuing, this is a story of the bonds of friendship that are forged between employee and employer. Sera may be well off, with a beautiful, pregnant daughter and son-in-law living with her after her husband passed away three years earlier, but there is darkness within her. Her husband is survived by a mother, incapacitated by a stroke, who had dominated Sera’s adult life, intent on extracting pain. This trait was passed to her son, who’s need to dominate Sera included the use of his fists.

Bhima, an uneducated but hard working woman, had been courted by Gopol and lived a happy life, until an industrial accident robbed them of 3 fingers, worker’s compensation, and dignity. As Gopol’s slide to despair and pain makes him turn to drink, the joy and caring goes out of the family.

The story, as it unwinds, begins with Bhima’s shame as she sees her 17 year old granddaughter Maya is pregnant and unmarried. Throughout this book, Bhima is on a quest for find justice. What we find, however, is that even with an education, women are at the mercy of men in this society. We also find that women can be even crueler when asked to take sides.

Bhima has given her life and energy to Sera and her family, yet is not allowed to sit on the furniture or use the dishes. While Sera has helped Bhima when Maya came to her, taking an interest in Maya’s education, when faced with realities of Bhima’s life, such as where she lives, Sera remains apart. It is in the end, when real evil is revealed, that the façade is pulled down.

In order to not spoil the story, I will leave it at this: in India the voices of women are marginalized, and the voices of poor women are silenced. In the larger world, this story is yet another tale that in a simple relationship where one holds the power, you need to understand this and not give up too much of yourself. Unless you are fully treated as equal, in the book by being allowed to sit on the chairs to drink from the glasses, in the movie by being allowed to come in to sit next to Miss Daisy as they hear MLK, Jr. there will always remain a barrier to equality. Even if there is deep companionship.  This struggle continues today, not just in India, but everywhere that people are not equal. Economic, spiritual, racial, and gender identifications are all ways in which the world has been divided, and remains so. Those in power, as in the book, will do everything to keep their power, regardless of the cost to others.

books, reading

A Travelling American

k4books

Travel, whether for work or for pleasure, can be a chore. Away from your home, your family, your normal routines, you focus on where you are and how to fill the time. Especially if you are waiting in a crowded airport when your plane is delayed.  In this current trip, uncomfortably still on crutches, going through security I realized my ereader, just updated with four new titles, remained safely in the docking station in my home office. Travelling with only work equipment, I scramble to download something to read that will download to my personal phone. It is in this frame of mind that I started to read An American Marriage by Tayari Jones.

The title is a bit misleading – while this chronicles the story of a marriage, it is actually a study in the strengths and limits of love, in all different shapes and forms.  The story begins with Roy and Celestial. By mapping out the relationship by way of different perspectives, you see that these two have entered marriage with different expectations. They play at being married, sparring over everything, and not truly understanding the “communion” of the institution. Both come from homes based upon second chances, surrounded full of love and commitment. Then the scary reality of being a black man in the wrong place at the wrong time, the pair is forced to face the hardship of a forced but unjust separation.

As the years go by, life charges on. Trying to survive on the promise of dreams, finding strength within oneself to pursue them alone, and realizing the foundation of the marriage was not as strong as expected changes both. The stories told from both perspectives bring the realization that the base of the marriage was lacking, provoking guilt, grief and denial at different times.

These same revelations are shown when the stories turn to the parents. Big Roy and Olive were entirely devoted to each other. Olive had been through the passion and came through the fire alone with her son. When she met Roy, after making it clear it was a package deal, they made a commitment to each other. And the devotion continued to be shown each day until the last, when Big Roy made sure that Olive was buried by the one who loved her most, filling in the grave himself. Similarly, Celestial’s parents came together after they met when he was married to someone else. Another father devoted to the new family he built on a firm foundation – symbolized by the old hickory tree in the yard.

And then there is the love between a parent and a child. Big Roy fully embracing Little Roy; Andre embraced by Mr Henderson, Little Roy and the Biological, and even Dre and his father. Even if people leave, that does not mean they don’t care. Spoiler – finding out that Olive gives up the fight once she realizes there is someone taking care of her son was very different from the belief that Big Roy had once he hear Celestial told Olive the Biological was watching over Little Roy.

Stereotypes would be easy to fall back upon here, but the depth of these characters and the basic understanding of the underlying social injustice for the black community runs below the surface of the story. Paralleled in the river where Roy goes each day to contemplate, the river of injustice can be heard if you listen closely. The reality of it being there, always under the bridge to elsewhere, is the current running through each story. This is a most powerful image – the current remains, even if there is a bridge over it, you can’t always take it to the other side, just as The Hick is a metaphor for a marriage.

This book still surprises me as I process it. Very powerful, and beautifully written.

book-review, books, Family Drama, literature, reading

Eleanor Oliphant has been here

k4books

A typical crisis for me is there are too many book to choose from. After picking book group titles last week, I had to read another title I proposed that others had already read.  Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine, by Gail Honeyman, was a joy.

At times reminiscent of The Rosie Project or A Man Called Ove, this fish out of water story had a bit of a dark twist.  While stumbling into real life, Eleanor is forced to face her past instead of drowning it in vodka. She begins to plan for a life with a man she has never met. As she executes this plan, she begins “self improvement” with a new haircut, new clothes, and new makeup. Outside of this plan, however, are interactions with people in ways she is unfamiliar with. Raymond, the tech support at her office, and Sammy, the person they helped when in distress on the street, provide her with more support than she knew she needed.

In fact, when she first met Raymond he found a virus on her computer and was able to clean it so it would be more effective. Same could be said of how he helped Eleanor. There were people to help around her always, she just needed to have some programs tweaked to have her work effectively with them. Another metaphor in the story is how she sets to cleaning her apartment. It transforms from a sad, uncared for space into a bright space looking for interesting things to add to the walls. She was a sad, uncared for person (she thought), but when she cared enough to buy herself things more than “useful” she is no longer just her scars, but a beautiful woman.

And while the dark part of the story was not hard to guess at due to the clues, the fact that she had so successfully fallen through the cracks of the system that was to help her was a sad comment on those the legal system that is meant to protect children.

books, reading

While the kids are at camp, I feel…..

k4books

I have just returned home from dropping my kids at camp.  They are gone for the next four weeks.  I am home with the dog, but the house is so silent.  I miss them so much.  I also am relieved that I have the house to myself for now to try and finally get it cleaned and organized.  As parents are dropping their children off, there are so many emotions swirling, you never know what to feel.  The first day for me is always the hardest – I miss them, but feel guilty that I don’t miss them enough.  It was in this state of mind that I finished Alice Hoffman’s Faithful.

At its core, this is a story of what happens in the blink of an eye.  One action sends waves of reactions  that are irrevocable and life changing.  That is what happens when Shelby crashes the car, and her best friend Helene is damaged beyond repair.  Carrying that guilt, Shelby breaks down mentally, and is brought back by the love of her mother and messages sent to her on postcards.  These postcards seem to know what she is thinking and feeling.  And they help her survive.

If this is what you call surviving.  As Shelby learns how to be in the world again, and allows herself to let people into her life, she takes small steps, with Ben Mink, and larger steps, first with stray dogs she “liberates” from a homeless man, then Maravelle and then Maravelle’s children.  As each person makes their way into her life, the protective coating she has created begins to wear thin.  And she begins to care about other people.  When she takes her first steps to choose someone, she makes a mistake with Harper Levy, but learns from this.  All along she feels that she gets what she deserves.

As she continues to make a way toward finding herself, she finds a passion, taking care of animals, and commits to it.  She comes to peace with her mother, who protected her as best she could during the hardest times, and learned that she was someone’s everything – something she never thought she was worth.  And she finds James – the writer of the postcards.

The story is a journey of forgiveness to yourself.  While Maravelle and her kids don’t believe she needs that, it is ultimately Teddy who hears her story due to his pain.  And while Ben can’t understand the pain, he tried to be there, but never really understood.  James, however, lived that pain everyday.

Ultimately what this story told me was that we are our own harshest critic, the least forgiving and the most vicious.  If we could be as kind to ourselves as Helene’s father was to Shelby when she came to say goodbye, it would be a must less self-destructive world.

And so, I will not feel badly for being glad my children are in their happy places, even if that is defined as somewhere without me.  I will embrace the strength I have given them to know they can venture out safely, that I am always here for them to come home to.